


Closure

by ScaryScarecrows



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, What's going on here?, and thought that poor Numbers deserved better than that soap opera cliffhanger, seriously though I reread Gotham Nights 11, wouldn't you like to know weather boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29900052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScaryScarecrows/pseuds/ScaryScarecrows
Summary: The facts:One: Jason Todd is dead.Two: The Red Hood saved him from an assassin last Friday.Three: Somebody bought him a sandwich and left him a message that, quite frankly, only Jason Todd would know toleave.Four-and this one’s a little dicy-: Jason Todd is the Red Hood?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	Closure

**Author's Note:**

> Numbers appears in...I think it’s Gotham Nights #11? I feel so bad for him. Like. I’m pretty sure Jason’s legally dead right during that, so, uh, wow he must be having a crisis over that whole thing. (10/10, do recommend. Wish the writer/artist would team up and do more for Red Hood, because I liked this and more like it would make me happy.)

Numbers thinks, maybe too little too late, that bursting into a crime lord’s office was a bad idea.

He knows better. He knows how to get audiences with these people, to market his skills. It’s just. Someone tried to kill him, which isn’t that weird, but the Red Hood took him out, which is a little weird, and he’s pretty sure the Red Hood is  _ Jason _ , who is  _ dead _ , and…

He needs answers. And Dove Marquis has the connections to get them. Hell, word on the street is that Hood...doesn’t work for her, exactly, but he’s under her protection or whatever. She can contact him, get him to see Numbers, maybe, and, like, explain…

He doesn’t know what he wants, here, other than answers. He’s not sure if he’s being haunted or stalked or something else entirely, but he wants answers.

The facts:

One: Jason Todd is dead.

Two: The Red Hood saved him from an assassin last Friday.

Three:  _ Somebody _ bought him a sandwich and left him a message that, quite frankly, only Jason Todd would know to leave.

Four-and this one’s a little dicy-: Jason Todd is the Red Hood?

These tie together somehow, he knows it. The question is, is that last fact, well, factual? Or just him remembering a childhood friend and being all weird about it? Time to find out.

“What the hell--”

“Shit, Miss M--” The big man Numbers had to run from bursts in, wheezing. “Little fucker’s fast...I’ll get him outta here--”

“It’s only Numbers.” Oh, good, she remembers him. “Where’s the fire, hon?”

He’s really not that fast. He was just...uh...he was hauling ass. Oh, God, he can’t breathe.

“I.” Shit. He needs to work out, stairs shouldn’t be that hard. “I need to talk to you.”

“It’s okay, Louis. You can go.” Dove leans back in her chair. “Siddown, honey. What’s going on?”

Fuck it.

“Jason’s the Red Hood,” he spits out. “I need to see him.”

“What Hood calls himself in his off hours isn’t something that concerns me--”

“No--he--I--we were friends, as kids, I took the rock salt for him and he saved my ass last Friday--”

Dove just blinks at him. The cockatoo screeches before attacking some dangly toy on its perch.

“The hell are you  _ talking _ about?”

It’s crazy. He knows it. But Gotham is crazy, too.

“Jason Todd,” he explains. “We were friends at this...basically it was Criminal Kindergarten...he switched the rifle rounds for blanks one day and I took the fall, and last Friday he--”

“Look, maybe you’ve been out of town for a bit, but, uh, Jason Todd is dead,” she tells him, only semi-kindly. “Some volunteer thing gone awry, poor thing.”

Yeah, he knows. Jay got picked up by Bruce Wayne-Bruce  _ Wayne! _ -and got kidnapped by terrorists and killed. At the time, Numbers had...well...honestly, he’d been mad about the unfairness of it all, but ultimately, good people never last. Not in Gotham, and apparently not when they come from Gotham.

“I know. I know it’s crazy. But I--I always get the same sandwich, right, from this shop in the Narrows, and last Friday, the girl told me some guy had already paid for it and left a message, and I  _ know _ Jason’s the one who did it because he’s the only one who would--” He gulps. “And. And Hood, he--someone was gonna kill me, and he stopped ‘em, and--”

“Hood’s an idiot who can’t count for shit and thinks taking bullets is a smart idea*,” Dove snaps. “I doubt it’s personal.”

See, Numbers would believe that if it weren’t for the sandwich thing. And. Um. Everybody’s heard the stories, about Hood having risen from the grave for vengeance or whatever, and...if anyone were stubborn enough to either fake their death or resurrect entirely, it would be Jason.

“I need to see him.”

“Well, you could always try taking a child hostage, that’ll get his attention. He’ll be pissed, but he’ll show up.”

“I know you can get in touch with him.”

“He really just shows up--”

“Please.” He takes his glasses off and tries to clean them. “Please, I...maybe I’m wrong, I just...please.”

Dove’s quiet for a few minutes. Numbers starts to resign himself to being thrown out when she sits up and leans forward.

“I will  _ try _ to get in touch with Hood,” she says. “But it might take me a bit. Don’t worry about payment, I’ll collect at some point, y’know how that goes.”

Yeah...he’s not thrilled about that part, but. He knew it was coming.

“Thank you.”

“Mm-hm. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

* * *

A week passes. Numbers is starting to think that Dove either can’t or won’t get hold of Jason-Hood-who the fuck ever, but then he gets a text from an unknown number that says simply,  _ 3654 North Alan Street, 9:04 PM Saturday. _

It’s sketchy. He doesn’t like it. But he picks up a gun from an acquaintance and goes, shows up a little before nine just to be safe.

3654 North Alan Street is an abandoned house in the Narrows proper. It’s falling apart and infested with vermin and it smells, but, well, that’s what happens, Numbers figures, when you meet with maybe-undead vigilantes.

…

Or Dove’s sent someone to kill him, that’s always possible. He didn’t end his association with Penguin on good terms, maybe she’s going to settle that debt or something. Crime organizations are funny like that.

Nine-oh-four rolls around and there’s an ominous  **creak** in the dark. A second later, the street lights outside glint off a red helmet.

Numbers has never actually seen Hood up close. He looks nothing like how he remembers Jason to be. Jason had been a scrawny little shit-they all were, and Numbers never did hit that growth spurt like he’d hoped-who fought like a Chihuahua. Hood’s six feet if he’s an inch and broad, and Numbers  _ has _ seen grainy footage. He doesn’t fight like a Chihuahua.

“Heard you wanted to see me.” The helmet gives his voice a demonic sound, deep and reverberating. “Heard you busted into Dove’s office an’ everything.”

In hindsight, that was bad. He’s not sure how he’s still alive, either.

Fuck it.

“Jason?”

If Hood’s startled, he hides it well.

“Jason who?”

“No--you. You’re Jason Todd.”

“Jason Todd’s been dead for years,” Hood says shortly. “Might wanna watch what you spout; some people don’t take kindly to bullshit.”

“Knock it off.” Hood wouldn’t save him from an assassin just to punch his head off in a gross house. Right? “I know it’s you, you left that message--”

“I didn’t leave shit--”

“You always sucked at lying.” Hood shuts up. “That’s why you were gonna own up rather than blame that asshole Rodney.”

The helmet tilts to the side, but otherwise Hood’s still. If Numbers squints, he can just see him favoring his right shoulder, holding it close to his body.

Dove’d said he’d been shot, right? She’d been kinda pissed about it, too.

“Rodney was an asshole,” he says at last. “But now we’re even, so--”

“I fucking knew it!” He releases the breath he’d forgotten he was holding. “You jackass, I thought you died--”

“I got better--”

“Fuck you, man!” Now that he’s mostly sure it  _ is _ Jason under there, he’s mad. What kind of maniac fakes their death or whatever so they can run around dressed like some post-apocalyptic biker? “You were out! You struck gold with Wayne and then you just  _ had _ to go overseas to be all helpful and shit--”

Hood laughs. It’s not a particularly happy sound.

“Yeah, well, that didn’t last.” He goes to the window. “You. You won’t have any more trouble. Like. At all. Just, uh, just try to keep on the straight an’ narrow, huh?”

“Jason--”

“I’m not the kid you used to know, Numbers.” Hood’s not looking at him now. “Just. Just stay outta trouble, huh?”

And then he’s just  **gone** and Numbers, well, Numbers is left to wonder if he was ever here at all.

THE END

  
  
  
  
  


*Jason’s brilliant ‘take down the baddie after I’m out of bullets’ plan is to literally stand there and get shot before chucking his gun at the guy’s head. How much of this is an excuse for the artist to draw him shirtless and stitching himself up is a mystery for the ages.


End file.
